Sen. John Cornyn seeks to follow LBJ’s path to Senate leadership

In a long-anticipated move, Sen. John Cornyn, R-San Antonio, is seeking the second-ranking post in the Senate Republican leadership to serve as heir apparent to veteran Senate leader Mitch McConnell, a 68-year-old Republican who faced tougher-than-expected re-election back home in Kentucky.

Senate photo

Sen. John Cornyn

Cornyn, 59, current chairman of Senate Republicans’ campaign operation, is making personal appeals for support to each of the Senate’s 46 other Republican senators and expects to complete the initial phase of reaching out by the end of the weekend, a Cornyn aide told the Houston Chronicle.

Cornyn spoke on Thursday with his chief rival for the post &#151 Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who currently serves in the third-ranking post in the Senate GOP leadership.

“He and Lamar are friends. They talked. I’m sure it was awkward but it was not really a big deal,” the Cornyn aide said.

The post of GOP whip will open up in 2013 with the announced retirement of Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona.

If Republicans wrest political control of the Senate from Democrats in 2012, the post sought by Cornyn would become even more powerful, serving as day-to-day quarterback of Senate legislative business and vote counting.

Cornyn’s decision to seek the Senate GOP leadership post came to light on a day when Texas Gov. Rick Perry was in the nation’s capital showcasing his own national leadership, serving as chairman of the Republican Governors’ Association and potentially a GOP candidate for the White House.

The timing of Cornyn’s move was “all coincidence,” the Cornyn aide insisted. Cornyn started soliciting colleagues support for the Senate leadership post as soon as Kyl made public his decision to retire from the Senate at the end of his term in 2012.

Cornyn hopes to benefit from political IOUs that he has built up with colleagues in his stint as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the campaign entity that provides money and support to GOP incumbent senators and to GOP Senate candidates.

Cornyn seeks to follow a path to Senate leadership that closely resembles the route used by Sen. Lyndon Johnson, D-Texas, who served as Senate whip in 1951 and then Senate minority leader during GOP Senate control from 1953 to 1955 before becoming Senate majority leader when his party took control of the Senate in 1956.